Ramsey-Type Results for Unions of Comparability Graphs

 It is well known that the comparability graph of any partially ordered set of n elements contains either a clique or an independent set of size at least . In this note we show that any graph of n vertices which is the union of two comparability graphs on the same vertex set, contains either a clique or an independent set of size at least . On the other hand, there exist such graphs for which the size of any clique or independent set is at most n ^0.4118. Similar results are obtained for graphs which are unions of a fixed number k comparability graphs. We also show that the same bounds hold for unions of perfect graphs. Received: November 1, 1999 Final version received: December 1, 2000     

List Homomorphisms and Circular Arc Graphs

G , H, and lists , a list homomorphism of G to H with respect to the lists L is a mapping , such that for all , and for all . The list homomorphism problem for a fixed graph H asks whether or not an input graph G together with lists , , admits a list homomorphism with respect to L. We have introduced the list homomorphism problem in an earlier paper, and proved there that for reflexive graphs H (that is, for graphs H in which every vertex has a loop), the problem is polynomial time solvable if H is an interval graph, and is NP-complete otherwise. Here we consider graphs H without loops, and find that the problem is closely related to circular arc graphs. We show that the list homomorphism problem is polynomial time solvable if the complement of H is a circular arc graph of clique covering number two, and is NP-complete otherwise. For the purposes of the proof we give a new characterization of circular arc graphs of clique covering number two, by the absence of a structure analogous to Gallai's asteroids. Both results point to a surprising similarity between interval graphs and the complements of circular arc graphs of clique covering number two. Received: July 22, 1996/Revised: Revised June 10, 1998     

Vertex-Disjoint Triangles in Claw-Free Graphs with Minimum Degree at Least Three

. Our main result is as follows: For any integer , if G is a claw-free graph of order at least and with minimum degree at least 3, then G contains k vertex-disjoint triangles unless G is of order and G belongs to a known class of graphs. We also construct a claw-free graph with minimum degree 3 on n vertices for each such that it does not contain k vertex-disjoint triangles. We put forward a conjecture on vertex-disjoint triangles in -free graphs. Received: November 21, 1996/Revised: Revised February 19, 1998     

Bipartite Subgraphs of Graphs with Maximum Degree Three

We prove that for a connected graph G with maximum degree 3 there exists a bipartite subgraph of G containing almost of the edges of G. Furthermore, we completely characterize the set of all extremal graphs, i.e. all connected graphs G=(V, E) with maximum degree 3 for which no bipartite subgraph has more than of the edges; |E| denotes the cardinality of E. For 2-edge-connected graphs there are two kinds of extremal graphs which realize the lower bound . Received: July 17, 1995 / Revised: April 5, 1996     

Colour Number, Capacity, and Perfectness of Directed Graphs

We introduce a new concept of chromatic number for directed graphs, called the colour number and use it to upper bound the transitive clique number and the Sperner capacity of arbitrary directed graphs. Our results represent a common generalization of previous bounds of Alon and the second author and lead to a concept of perfectness for directed graphs. Revised: June 3, 1998     

The graph formulation of the union-closed sets conjecture

The union-closed sets conjecture asserts that in a finite non-trivial union-closed family of sets there has to be an element that belongs to at least half the sets. We show that this is equivalent to the conjecture that in a finite non-trivial graph there are two adjacent vertices each belonging to at most half of the maximal stable sets. In this graph formulation other special cases become natural. The conjecture is trivially true for non-bipartite graphs and we show that it holds also for the classes of chordal bipartite graphs, subcubic bipartite graphs, bipartite series-parallel graphs and bipartitioned circular interval graphs. We derive that the union-closed sets conjecture holds for all union-closed families being the union-closure of sets of size at most three.     

Independent sets and 2‐factors in edge‐chromatic‐critical graphs

In 1968, Vizing made the following two conjectures for graphs which are critical with respect to the chromatic index: (1) every critical graph has a 2‐factor, and (2) every independent vertex set in a critical graph contains at most half of the vertices. We prove both conjectures for critical graphs with many edges, and determine upper bounds for the size of independent vertex sets in those graphs. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 45: 113–118, 2004     

Minimum convex piecewise linear cost tension problem on quasi-<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis> series-parallel graphs

Some hypermedia synchronization issues request the resolution of the minimum convex piecewise linear cost tension problem (CPLCT problem) on directed graphs that are close to two-terminal series-parallel graphs (TTSP-graphs), the so-called quasi-k series-parallel graphs (k-QSP graphs). An aggregation algorithm has already been introduced for the CPLCT problem on TTSP-graphs. We propose here a reconstruction method, based on the aggregation and the well-known out-of-kilter techniques, to solve the problem on k-QSP graphs. One of the main steps being to decompose a graph into TTSP-subgraphs, methods based on the recognition of TTSP-graphs are thoroughly discussed.Received: October 2003, Revised: July 2004, MSC classification: 90C35, 05C85     

Diffusion processes on graphs: stochastic differential equations,large deviation principle

Ito's rule is established for the diffusion processes on the graphs. We also consider a family of diffusions processes with small noise on a graph. Large deviation principle is proved for these diffusion processes and their local times at the vertices. Received: 12 February 1997 / Revised version: 3 March 1999     

Randomized greedy matching

We consider a randomized version of the greedy algorithm for finding a large matching in a graph. We assume that the next edge is always randomly chosen from those remaining. We analyze the performance of this algorithm when the input graph is fixed. We show that there are graphs for which this Randomized Greedy Algorithm (RGA) usually only obtains a matching close in size to that guaranteed by worst-case analysis (i.e., half the size of the maximum). For some classes of sparse graphs (e.g., planar graphs and forests) we show that the RGA performs significantly better than the worst-case. Our main theorem concerns forests. We prove that the ratio to maximum here is at least 0.7690…, and that this bound is tight.     

Self-Converse and Oriented Graphs among the Third Parts of Nearly Complete Digraphs

H into t isomorphic parts is generalized so that either a remainder R or a surplus S, both of the numerically smallest possible size, are allowed. The sets of such nearly parts are defined to be the floor class and the ceiling class , respectively. We restrict ourselves to the case of nearly third parts of , the complete digraph, with . Then if , else and . The existence of nearly third parts which are oriented graphs and/or self-converse digraphs is settled in the affirmative for all or most n's. Moreover, it is proved that floor classes with distinct R's can have a common member. The corresponding result on the nearly third parts of the complete 2-fold graph is deduced. Furthermore, also if . Received: September 12, 1994/Revised: Revised November 3, 1995     

Remarks on ghost projections and ideals in the Roe algebras of expander sequences

We use repeating sequences of expander graphs or small perturbations of expanders to present examples of ideals in the Roe algebras of bounded geometry discrete metric spaces which cannot be expressed as the sum of a ghost ideal and an ideal in which finite propagation operators are dense. This gives a negative answer to a question in [1, 3]. Received: 9 December 2006, Revised: 18 April 2007     

On connected domination in unit ball graphs

Given a simple undirected graph, the minimum connected dominating set problem is to find a minimum cardinality subset of vertices D inducing a connected subgraph such that each vertex outside D has at least one neighbor in D. Approximations of minimum connected dominating sets are often used to represent a virtual routing backbone in wireless networks. This paper first proposes a constant-ratio approximation algorithm for the minimum connected dominating set problem in unit ball graphs and then introduces and studies the edge-weighted bottleneck connected dominating set problem, which seeks a minimum edge weight in the graph such that the corresponding bottleneck subgraph has a connected dominating set of size k. In wireless network applications this problem can be used to determine an optimal transmission range for a network with a predefined size of the virtual backbone. We show that the problem is hard to approximate within a factor better than 2 in graphs whose edge weights satisfy the triangle inequality and provide a 3-approximation algorithm for such graphs. We also show that for fixed k the problem is polynomially solvable in unit disk and unit ball graphs.     

The facet ideal of a simplicial complex

 To a simplicial complex, we associate a square-free monomial ideal in the polynomial ring generated by its vertex set over a field. We study algebraic properties of this ideal via combinatorial properties of the simplicial complex. By generalizing the notion of a tree from graphs to simplicial complexes, we show that ideals associated to trees satisfy sliding depth condition, and therefore have normal and Cohen-Macaulay Rees rings. We also discuss connections with the theory of Stanley-Reisner rings. Received: 7 January 2002 / Revised version: 6 May 2002     

Harnack inequalities and sub-Gaussian estimates for random walks

We show that the -parabolic Harnack inequality for random walks on graphs is equivalent, on one hand, to the sub-Gaussian estimate for the transition probability and, on the other hand, to the conjunction of the elliptic Harnack inequality, the doubling volume property, and the fact that the mean exit time in any ball of radius R is of the order . The latter condition can be replaced by a certain estimate of the resistance of annuli. Received: 15 November 2001 / Revised version: 21 February 2002 / Published online: 6 August 2002     

Improved boolean formulas for the Ramsey graphs

In the theory of the random graphs, there are properties of graphs such that almost all graphs satisfy the property, but there is no effective way to find examples of such graphs. By the well-known results of Razborov, for some of these properties, e.g., some Ramsey property, there are Boolean formulas in ACC representing the graphs satisfying the property and having exponential number of vertices with respect to the number of variables of the formula. Razborov's proof is based on a probabilistic distribution on formulas of n variables of size approximately nd² log d, where d is a polynomial in n, and depth 3 in the basis { ∧, ⊕} with the following property: The restriction of the formula randomly chosen from the distribution to any subset A of the Boolean cube {0, 1}ⁿ of size at most d has almost uniform distribution on the functions A → {0, 1}. We show a modified probabilistic distribution on Boolean formulas which is defined on formulas of size at most nd log² d and has the same property of the restrictions to sets of size at most d as the original one. This allows us to obtain formulas the complexity of which is a polynomial of a smaller degree in n than in Razborov's paper while the represented graphs satisfy the same properties.     

Vertex-magic labelings of regular graphs II

Previously the first author has shown how to construct vertex-magic total labelings (VMTLs) for large families of regular graphs. The construction proceeds by successively adding arbitrary 2-factors to a regular graph of order n which possesses a strong VMTL, to produce a regular graph of the same order but larger size. In this paper, we exploit this construction method. We are able to show that for any r≥4, every r-regular graph of odd order n≤17 has a strong VMTL. We show how to produce strong labelings for some families of 2-regular graphs since these are used as the starting points of our construction. While even-order regular graphs are much harder to deal with, we introduce ‘mirror’ labelings which provide a suitable starting point from which the construction can proceed. We are able to show that several large classes of r-regular graphs of even order (including some Hamiltonian graphs) have VMTLs.     

On rank-perfect subclasses of near-bipartite graphs

Shepherd95 proved that the stable set polytopes of near-bipartite graphs are given by constraints associated with the complete join of antiwebs only. For antiwebs, the facet set reduces to rank constraints associated with single antiwebs by Wagler2004. We extend this result to a larger graph class, the complements of fuzzy circular interval graphs, recently introduced in ChudnovskySeymour2004. Received: November 2004 / Revised version: June 2005     

Graphs with a Small Number of Nonnegative Eigenvalues

In this paper, by means of computer checking, all simple graphs with at most two nonnegative eigenvalues, and all minimal simple graphs with exactly two (respectively, three) nonnegative eigenvalues are determined. Received: April 5, 1996 / Revised: May 2, 1997